


a kiss

by ama



Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Abstract, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Queer Character, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4827143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>two men in a bar, after the war is over</p>
            </blockquote>





	a kiss

**Author's Note:**

> I am... not entirely sure what this is. but it's a thing. warning for a slight, oblique reference to homophobic violence, because Louisiana in the 1940s, and also possibly PTSD-related... hypervigilance? I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. Snafu Shelton went to war and came back different, and that's the long and short of it.

They sit at a table in the corner of the room. They don't speak to anyone much; every once in a while, one will stand and go to the bar, refill their drinks, and return. But they don't chat with the men at the bar, the women they brush by on the way past the makeshift dance floor. And no one approaches the table. Every once in a while a woman's gaze roams the room, searching for a dance partner, and settles on one or the other of them (they aren't unattractive, after all), but whenever prodded by a friend she shrinks back, suddenly shy, and comments that they look like they've got something on their minds.

They don't speak to each other much, either. They sit on either side of the small round table, their knees knocking each others' and their feet bumping in their work boots. Now one sets aside his empty tumbler and takes two cigarettes from a crumpled pack in his jeans; the other takes out a lighter and lights them both. They smoke for a few minutes silently, the grey clouds settling in their dark hair, dulling their suntanned skin. One says something in a low voice, his lips barely moving. His companion chuckles and leans back in his seat, surveying the room with lazy arrogance. He answers. A man at the next table hears the unexpected French and looks up, but he meets the smoker's gaze and, embarrassed to be caught in his curiosity, hastily diverts his eyes.

The smoker's lips curl into a smirk, and he waves a hand contemptuously. There is a shift in his attitude. He is impatient with his surroundings. It is the wrong place for him; the sounds ring in his ears and the air curdles against his skin. If he remains much longer, he will allow his fight instinct to take over. For now he stubs out his cigarette in his empty glass, and snatches his companion's drink. The companion watches him silently, his eyes sharp and his lips narrow. He leans forward so they are cheek to cheek and speaks into his friend's ear. The tableau is picturesque: the two dark heads tilted together, one's delicate hand still holding his cigarette and the other's curled into a loose, familiar fist. Then the hand relaxes, its owner nods. The two men untangle their feet and stand, digging into their pockets for loose coins to leave on the table.

A vacuum is left behind them, but it is quickly filled. Others take their place at the table, air thrumming with music pushes away the remnants of cigarette smoke, the billow of cold air from the opening door dissipates among the bodies of the patrons who remain. They walk around the bar through the parking lot, which seems colder and quieter by comparison. The car they seek is all the way at the back. One man has his hand on the driver's side door when the other strides around quickly and kisses him.

It is not a safe kiss. It is dangerous, even in the half-privacy of an empty parking lot, because both of his hands grasp the other man's face and his breath is hot and demanding. But their hearts are used to danger, their hearts are used to the spike of adrenaline and the way it becomes hard to breathe when they are waiting for a fight, when the air is so thin that they slow their movements unthinkingly. They kiss like that, slowly, daringly, for a few long minutes before they pull away. That is slow too, the pulling away, beginning with their lips and then their hands and then their arms and then their entire bodies as they each take a step back.

"What was that for?" the one-who-was-kissed asks, and the one-who-kissed says "I don't know."

"You trying to get us killed?" he asks with a wry smirk at the corner of his lips. It's meant to be a joke and it's meant to make the other man uncomfortable--that is his specialty, making people uncomfortable--but it fails it task.

"One of us will," the man says calmly. "Some way or another. You almost did in there."

"Didn't do nothing."

"You almost did. You got that look in your eyes, Shelton. The trapped-on-the-front-lines look. Sometimes I don't think you realize you ever got back."

"And you do?" Shelton asks in a cutting voice.

"No... no, I don't either."

For a minute they stare at each other, and Shelton gives a slow, noncommittal shrug and opens the car door.

"Let's go home, then," he says.

They climb in the car and drive away, leaving the parking lot empty, the nighttime air cool and heavy in the darkness.


End file.
